People ask me, sometimes, what was your favorite Dead show ... now there's an impossible question to answer. But I thought it might be fun to occasionally post some musical moments that I thought were particularly outstanding.
So we'll start with a show that is one of my all-time favorites, one of Brent's first shows, from the Broome County Arena in Binghamton NY, 5-9-79.
I have heard rumors that there is a soundboard that exists of this show, and even chased it back in the day when I was a tape collector, but it has never surfaced. (I even had David Gans check the Vault for me. It wasn't there.) Instead, there are a couple of audience versions up on archive.org, both have quite a bit of crowd noise, but this is a rockin' New York show and all that clapping along kind of adds to the fun. (This is from an admitted SBD snob.)
Now, this is an example of a show not a lot of people have heard, with a pretty pedestrian setlist, but the magic was there that night. There are three moments in particular that make it noteworthy to me:
1) The jam between He's Gone and Truckin' is, literally, some of the best playing I've ever heard from the Dead, and that is saying a lot. Not to get all musical on you, or anything, but it starts somewhat typically, with Jerry playing a melodical riff he did a lot around that era, but suddenly it takes on a life of its own ... Phil starts alternating between the root (E) and the fifth (B) and suddenly you have this very interesting tradeoff and interplay between Jerry and Bob which culminates in them playing twin lead guitar together very high up on the neck, something I have never heard on another Dead show. It's this incredibly graceful ballet of notes for a couple of minutes, really outstanding. It drops right into a really smoking version of ...
2) Truckin' -- I can hear you say, big deal, Truckin' ... but this one is a little bit different ... for starters, it starts off rocking, with the crowd clapping along and settles into the groove ... but there are no vocals. It trucks a long a little bit, the band pauses for a half-beat ... and does the intro all over again to speed up a little, something else I have never heard them do twice. Then we get the vocals, with Bob's usual flubbed verse or two ... and then the usual series of rising riffs that is supposed to culminate in the big Phil bomb ... except Phil misses the first one. I mean, it's built to a huge frenzy and the first bomb isn't there, so I can just imagine everyone in the crowd kind of falling over themselves. So the band kicks into this absolutely frenetic jam, with an Other One groove, which has Jerry doing this unbelievable piercingly high riff ... and they do the bombs again, and does Phil hit it? I guess he does ... instead of four times they do it eight times ... and he's hitting it so hard he's overloading the sound system. He then does some really nice little bass runs, to lead the jam into the drums.
3) Wharf Rat -- It's the jam at the end of this one that gets to me ... they pick up one that same tension-release thing they do at the end of Truckin' with Jerry and Bob going way up the neck, building, building, building ... and then releasing. And ... surprise ... Jerry takes them into Round and Round. But Bobby doesn't sing the first line. So they hit the Round and Round intro again. Bobby doesn't sing that time either. Jerry hits it a third time, and Bobby kicks the band into a ferocious version of Sugar Magnolia. And the crowd is clapping along, and the jam at the end before Sunshine Daydream is just ... well, it's the Dead at their rocking best.
If you're a musician who appreciates the Grateful Dead, you need to hear these moments. If you're a Deadhead, you should hear these moments too, because I suspect it will wind up as one of your favorites. I got this tape a few months after the concert happened ... and I have never stopped listening to it. The second set is a must-have.
Enjoy. Vic
The version I had way back then:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd79-05-09.naks.seff.4881.sbefixed.shnf
A different version, slightly better sound, a little more vocal crowd:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd79-05-09.glassberg.vernon.18875.sbeok.shnf
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